At Lunch, The Play's The Thing

Education

A Middle School's Award-winning Drama Program Inspires Teens.

OVIEDO -- As Alex Smith and some friends ate cheeseburgers and pizza, 27 of their peers were draped in full Elizabethan costumes, gracefully spinning before them in a Renaissance dance

Then the dancers hoisted one of their own onto the shoulders of another student dancer and loudly chanted "Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare!"

This was the scene recently during a lunchtime lesson about the works of the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, from Genie Lindberg's eighth-grade drama class at Jackson Heights Middle School.

Lindberg was one of three national winners earlier this year of the fourth annual "Plan A Dream Program," which is sponsored by Creative Classrooms, a New York-based educational magazine. She created a project called Renaissance Rompers that involves students performing Shakespeare during lunch on a portable, outdoor stage at the school.

With the help of the $2,500 grant, Lindberg launched the program that also called on the Orlando/University of Central Florida Shakespeare Festival artists-in-residence program. The UCF drama students built the portable stage and helped train the Jackson Heights actors.

"This is great," enthused Smith, 14, as he clapped his hands in time to lively music spilling from overhead speakers. "A lot of kids wouldn't be exposed to Shakespeare otherwise, and he is one of the best writers of all time."

In the 25-minute skit, the young thespians sang and danced to Elizabethan music and presented short scenes from two Shakespeare favorites, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Below her on bended knee, actor Chuck Stroschein, 14, as Romeo, asked the audience, "Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?"

Lindberg said the students toiled to master Shakespeare's tricky dialogue. Most of the students already have had a basic drama class at the school and were very willing to take on the extra work of memorizing the choreography and lines to the skit, she said.

"This has really enlightened them," Lindberg said. "The show speaks for itself. I just stood there and cried. It was so great to see these kids doing this."

Lindberg hopes the program will grow during the next school year to include more performances and actors. But already, the effort has impressed Principal Bill Gibson. He said he will have the school's former shop class renovated into a small theater.

"Kids in this age group need to be up and moving around instead of sitting in class with an open book trying to figure things out," Lindberg said. "They literally became the characters in the plays and brought them to life."

Several of the student actors agreed, saying the project rejuvenated their enthusiasm about going to school and assisted in other areas of study.

"They should have more programs like this in schools," said Christopher DeBonis, 14. "This helps us learn and gives us something fun to do at school. It opens your mind to reading because the themes in Shakespeare's stuff will go on forever."